


Stay In The Present.

by doctorsdaughter



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorsdaughter/pseuds/doctorsdaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor had one rule: Stay in the present. Sometimes, it's just not possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay In The Present.

He doesn’t often think about the past, mostly because it hurts too much. No, think about the present. Stick with the present. The present is happening now, and he lives in that, because as long as he stays in the present he doesn’t have to think about who has left him, or who inevitably will. Stay in the present. That’s the only place he’s safe. The only place a Time Lord is ever safe.

He runs past a confused Clara, who is too discombobulated to even think of following him, it was odd having a companion doesn’t run very much, starting to put on the space suit. Where he got it doesn’t matter, all he knows is that he needs it. Stay in the present.

Clara mouths off about the space suit again, and he laughs it off because orange spacesuits _are cool_ , and opens the door to a smoky, fire-y world…that’s ending. Bits of Earth are in the sky, the ground is cracking beneath his feet to reveal an fire beneath. He’s only going to be able to stay for a minute at the most. Stay in the present.

He looks round, trying to find any evidence of the ghost plaguing that man and woman’s home and finds nothing. Stay in the present.

As he is about to step back into the TARDIS, his right hand started to tingle. He held up his hand.

“What?? Now?? We’re going to argue now??” he yells at his hand. Ever since it got cut off, even after regeneration, it still gave him a hard time. Always doing things he didn’t want to do.

His hand tingles, and slowly one of the fingers points upward. Nothing had ever happened like that before.

“What??” he yells, and he’s sure Clara thinks he’s a nutter, and he knows enough that blaming his hand wouldn’t help his case.

He looks up in the direction the finger was pointing. There, in all its glory, was Satellite One. He smiled a little. He was probably arguing with Rose at this very moment. Listening to her yell about the planet ending and how she was already dead, because she hadn’t gotten it yet. Up there, she was still _so human_. A nineteen year old who worked in the shop and had a boyfriend and ate chips. So unspectacularly human.

She was anything but unspectacular by the end. She was a Defender of Earth. She brought back the Dalek race, she travelled through dimensions, she never gave up, even when hope was lost for them. She was anything but human.

Of course, he was different then too. Oh god, he could barely stand who he was then. Always arguing. Always annoyed or cross with people. _Leather!_ He wore _leather._ Definitely the rebel phase he was always warned about. Or maybe a midlife crisis. Or maybe an effect of the Time War. Nevertheless, he never thinks about those years anymore.

He looks up, thinking about Cassandra, the Repeated Meme, Jabe, and the Face of Boe. He laughs, realizing he met Jack before he met Jack. Wasn’t that just the way of his life.

“Oi! Doctor!” Clara calls.

“Hold on a mo!” he calls, and looks back up at the satellite, where he can barely make out the cracking on the window facing the earth. He could remember Rose being trapped there. _Of course it would be you._

“Hold on, Rose,” he finally murmurs. “It’s all gonna be okay.”

He looks up again, as though he’s looking at the most beautiful sunset instead of a space satellite. He smiles a little, waving up at them. They would never see him. But that was where it all began. Him after the Time War. Him, all alone in the universe, fending on his own. That day was the start of it all.

“Hold on, me,” he murmurs. “It’s all gonna be okay.”

Finally it’s too much past than he can bare, walking back in the TARDIS, met with Clara’s shouting about how he could have been killed, he really needs to have the regeneration talk with her, and steps out of the spacesuit.

_Stay in the present._

             


End file.
